Pieces of a Dream
by Rieka De-Volka
Summary: This is not what they need. This is not what they want. This is what they have, to build up something from ashes of their dreams. EdEnvy.
1. Types of People

**Story Title:** Pieces of a Dream.  
**Chapter Title:** Types of People.  
**Pairing(s):** Edward Elric/Envy; nods to Roy Mustang/Alphonse Elric and Edward Elric/Alfons Heiderich; one-sided/platonic Russell Tringham/Edward Elric  
**Beta:** Sacralgral beta'd this, she's the love.  
**Rating:** PG-13, this chapter. R, overall (Uncensored version will be post at my LJ).  
**Genre:** Angst, Romance.  
**Warnings:** Post anime, more or less consistent with movie canon, violence, gore.  
**Feedback:** Very welcome, please!  
**Word Count:** +/- 1 680.  
**Summary:** This is not what they need. This is not what they want. This is what they have, to build up something from ashes of their dreams.  
**Author's Notes:** My birthday comes in March 24th coughHINTcough, and this is my birthday present, from myself to myself. But since I know it'll take a while to finish it – plot fic's always like that – I'm starting early and hoping to God I'll be able to finish on time. That'd be sad, wouldn't it? That my own birthday present was finished late? Though knowing, myself I wouldn't be surprised. This is, by the way, the Kindness AU I hinted at in the 100 sentences. Unlike my other works, this is an open sandbox. If you like the idea and feel like it, you're welcome to mess with the universe once this story is over, I really don't mind.

* * *

**Pieces of a Dream. **

Types of People.

_"There're two types of people;  
the ones that like to sleep to the wall's side  
and the ones that like to sleep to the side  
they're gonna get kicked off the bed from."_  
-- Etgar Keret, "Missing Kissinger."

Homunculi do not dream. Dreaming requires hope and desires that spring directly from a soul which they don't have. Dreaming is, then, yet another thing Homunculi despise simply because they cannot achieve it. Dreams are for humans, another tool to manipulate them with, to force them to see and feel and _do_ as they are needed to. Dreams are a weakness no self conscious Homunculus would ever admit to.

Envy was the oldest, though not the wisest of his kind. He had existed – existed and not lived, for living would have required him to _acknowledge_ the fact he was alive – from the beginning of the Homunculi Era. He was Dante's prized possession, her finest work of art. He was Hohenheim's eternal tormentor, a constant reminder of his failures as an alchemist, a human and a father. Envy was a thing and a feeling, a servant and a tool, but never quite his own person – his own person having died all too long ago for the idea to hold merit. He was fine with that, though, to serve and be used, so as long as he was allowed to want. He had many wants he never told anyone about and many others he shouted for the world to hear. He wanted revenge and violence, death and amusement.

He hadn't known that Want is the first step towards Desire, which is the first step towards Humanity, which is something he most certainly did _not_ want.

He came to desire things, despite it all, despite his lack of soul and despite his ignorance regarding the nature of desire – he wasn't Lust, after all, who knew it all about Desire – and that would in turn be the cause of his disgrace. His desires grew to the point they overwhelmed his want to serve and be used, draining patience he didn't have and morphing into obsession. Obsession, in the end, is simply a desire gone awry, something so dearly wanted it's impossible to reach. An obsession so strong, Envy's vision blurred, his goals twisted and he found himself walking through the tall archway of the Gate, leaving Dante and Edward and the world behind.

_Let them fight their petty fights,_ he had thought, crossing the threshold of Reality itself, _let them play their games, I'm just getting what's mine. What I deserve._

Envy had been Human – had never forgotten what and who he had been before, though no one else had to know about it – and he had been Immortal. He had been a Dragon and a Sacrifice. Envy had seen this world and the other world and the world between the worlds, all the while chasing after something he couldn't catch – an obsession is self-sustained; if he obsessed over something that was within his limits, what would be the point of it? Envy had been all of those, had survived being all of those.

Thus he, alone among his kind, dreamed.

* * *

Edward hadn't known what had made him do it. Or maybe he did, but he wasn't desperate enough to try and figure it out. The fact remained that Envy was lying on his bed, unconscious, and he had no clue what to do about it. The events that had led to this startling situation had become a blur that he couldn't really keep up with, culminating with a selfless act of kindness that had come out of nowhere. When he had found Envy – truly through a most unexpected chain of circumstances – the Homunculus had been unconscious already. Weakened and half dead, had Ed wanted to, he could have neatly destroyed Envy and erased the last of Dante's taint in the world. It could have been easy, too, considering Ed was in good health, surely strong enough to finish off his perpetual struggle with the Sin. 

But he hadn't, and now Envy was lying in the guest bedroom's bed, grinding Ed's mind to dust just by continuing to exist.

His little cottage in a small village south of Central was nothing out of the ordinary, but it had always felt empty somehow, too wide and too open for a single person to live there, despite the fact it had barely enough space for Ed to not feel caged. It wasn't a perfect life, Ed admitted, the one he lead out here on his own, but it was _his_. He didn't belong to the military because technically, he was dead for them. He didn't belong to Rizembul because Winry had gotten married while Ed chased after dreams and hopes, doing the right thing for everyone but himself. He didn't belong to Central, with Al, because Al was quite, quite content with shagging Mustang of all people, and Ed wasn't bored enough to try and open that particular can of worms.

So yes, he might be lonely, but he lived in a lovely place with lovely people that didn't ask many questions. And yes, he missed Al dearly, but it was for the best if he kept to himself and tried not to ruin his brother's life again.

By the point Envy had landed in his life – more accurately, in the back alley of his neighbors' home – Ed had decided he had done all he had been born to do. He was whole now, no longer depending on automail to move and feel human, and Al was back to normal, flesh and blood as he had always been meant to be; all his misadventures had ended like he had always hoped they would, _fine_. Except for the fatigue that had settled deep into his bones, draining his will bit by bit, and which had eventually led him to disappear from public eye.

After all, the Fullmetal Alchemist had died all those years ago, in the ruins below Central, and even if he _had_ survived, Ed Heiderich shared only a passing resemblance to the hero of Amestris. He didn't attract any attention, people passed him on the street without a second thought and his evasive nature allowed him to keep the whole town at arm's length. He was invisible, living peacefully in a tranquil town away from the blur of politics and military and whatever had made his life interesting when he was a teenager.

And then Envy had appeared.

Ed took a moment to look at the feverish homunculus, the waxen tone of his skin, even his hair, usually so wild and vibrant, seemed subdued, falling limply on the pillow. Ed wondered what Envy would bring into his life, what had stopped him from finishing off the homunculus when he had had the chance.

Maybe it was the inherent memory of the silvery blond that sneered at him moments before he died – he was_ killed_ – or maybe it was simply that he was lonely.

He _still _had the chance… Ed killed that train thought before it could become solid and simply cleaned the Sin's forehead with a wet rag, noting with a pang of _something_ that the pale skin was burning up. He wasn't worried about Envy – this was about _Envy_ after all – but he did feel a little tingle running over his nerves every time his eyes drifted over the unmoving frame on the bed.

Al had always said loneliness was the cause of many a disaster, after all.

* * *

"How's your friend doing, Mr. Heiderich?" 

"Do you need anything extra for your friend, Mr. Heiderich?"

"Oh, allow me! I've just got the thing, it came over this morning from Central. I'm sure it'll help your friend, Mr. Heiderich."

"You look pensive, Mr. Heiderich, is your friend getting worse?"

Ed had always been loved. Always. By his mother, by his brother, even by the men at the military. After his disastrous stay in Europe, he'd learned two things better than anything else; that his father, bastard that he was, still loved him, and that Alfons Heiderich, for all his sickness and his weariness, loved him as no one had ever loved him before.

After his blond friend died, Ed realized he too had loved him in ways he hadn't loved anyone else.

It might have been all that love, all that faith in him, what had made him choose to fade away into a small town, to let the Fullmetal legend grow into folklore with the added tragedy of an early death. People loved him and Ed touched their lives in the smallest ways, ways no one ever bothered to, simply because it was the way he was. The light inside him always burst through, reflecting itself in the eyes of those around him, in their smiles and their caring gestures.

Even now, Edward Heiderich, the reclusive young man who lived in the outskirts of Ruath and very rarely allowed himself to be seen, was treated kindly by all who had met him, however briefly. It was a mystery he couldn't figure out on his own, not even with the help of Russell's sarcastic, biting letters.

Ed couldn't understand that he was _meant_ to be loved, because he _knew_ he was _also_ meant to suffer tragedy after tragedy in his attempts to fix up the world.

Walking back into his little cottage, Ed shrugged off the strange weight on his shoulders and directly moved to the guest room in which he had left Envy. Placing the bag with his purchases on the nightstand, Ed found the homunculus to be in the same state as he had left him in: unconscious and deep within delirium.

There was something intrinsically _wrong_ with seeing Envy twisting all over the bed, bathed in cold sweat and muttering little words and curses as he continued to fight off whatever nightmare had grasped him so tightly. With a mournful laugh, Ed admitted he wasn't a sadist, then promptly went about cleaning the translucent skin, rubbing the sweat away with lukewarm water and mechanical movements that were doomed to fail at keeping him emotionally unattached.

It wasn't that he liked Envy – they had _killed_ each other – but that he was lonely.

So terribly lonely.

He wondered when Russell's next letter was due to come.

* * *

_Review?_


	2. The Other Side of Maybe

**Story Title:** Pieces of a Dream.  
**Chapter Title:** The Other Side of Maybe.  
**Pairing(s):** Edward Elric/Envy; nods to Roy Mustang/Alphonse Elric and Edward Elric/Alfons Heiderich; one-sided/platonic Russell Tringham/Edward Elric  
**Beta:** No one, yet.  
**Rating:** R, this chapter. R, overall (Uncensored version will be post at my LJ).  
**Genre:** Angst, Romance.  
**Warnings:** Post anime, more or less consistent with movie canon, violence, gore.  
**Feedback:** Very welcome, please!  
**Word Count:** +/- 2 165.  
**Summary:** This is not what they need. This is not what they want. This is what they have, to build up something from ashes of their dreams.  
**Author's Notes:** This is a gore-ish chapter. Disturbing images, so please proceed with caution. Also, yes Ed, Envy bites, did you forget? I'm trying to keep the chapters short to avoid pointless rambling, do tell me if you feel I'm rushing it, though.

* * *

**Pieces of a Dream. **

The Other Side of Maybe.

_"Are you so scared to look within?  
The ghosts are crawling on our skin.  
We may race and we may run,  
We'll not undo what has been done  
Or change the moment when it's gone.  
(…)  
I know it would be outrageous  
To come on all courageous  
And offer you my hand,  
To pull you up onto dry land  
When all I've got is sinking sand.  
The trick ain't worth the time it buys,  
I'm sick of hearing my own lies  
And Love's a raven when it flies."  
_ -- David Gray, "The Other Side."

Later, much later, alone and nursing a fatal heartbreak, Ed would spend hours analyzing those first moments, the first instants in which Envy awoke and their eyes met. He thought, foolishly, that maybe he had done something wrong, that it was his own fault that things degenerated as they had. It was useless, of course, but in the torturous solicitude that caged him, Ed couldn't help himself, gathering his memories close and ignoring the world outside. The first time: those vibrant, inhuman eyes staring at him, the pain lingering in between gasped breaths, the translucent skin that glowed eerily in a sordid mockery of illness… Yes, Ed would remember everything from that day. Everything, forever.

He didn't wake slowly, tuning his senses back one by one. He didn't have a fuzzy recollection of the world before it slowly came back into focus. No, when Envy awoke, it was instantaneous, shocking and oh so painful. His eyes snapped open and a high pitched keen erupted from the very core of his being as the pain reset itself within. Quite simply, his body was breaking itself and nothing, _nothing_ could compare to the feeling of molecules methodically stripping themselves away to ether.

"Envy!" Ed allowed the basin in his hands to fall and shatter in the wooden floor as he reached over for the convulsing homunculus.

Envy keened louder when Ed touched him: his skin was so cold it felt frozen, but he continued to sweat. Panicking – Ed had expected anything from cold fury to violent attempts to kill him; but he hadn't been prepared for the sheer _agony_ that was apparently withering Envy away – the blond scrambled around to restrain the shaking limbs. Without anything else to help, Ed found himself laying flush over Envy, pressing him down with his weight and matching snarl with snarl as he tried to subdue the attack.

Then, it stopped, as abruptly as it had started, and Ed found himself face to face with a pair of very sober, very _conscious_ violet eyes.

And then Envy turned to the side, heaving violently as he threw up, red water and red stones, all over the nice pine planks that made up the floor.

By the time Ed gathered his wits – and convinced his own stomach to stay _put_ – Envy was out again.

* * *

The second time Envy awoke he still felt like something Gluttony had munched on then spat on the sidewalk, but the display wasn't nearly as dramatic as the one before. He was dizzy and pained, but he contained the wail with sheer will, not wanting to alert the other that he's awake. His mind was a tumble of images and sensations that just didn't fit each other and Envy had the sinking feeling he had done something unbearably stupid. He sat slowly, uncurling his spine despite the fact he felt it wobble as he did, and looked around the room with something that might have passed off as curiosity.

It froze up into something else all together, when he caught sight of Ed sprawled on a chair by the window.

The last thing Envy remembered clearly was the tall archway stretching before him before everything else blurred into sound and color and _pain_ – _so much pain_ – that carried his weary mind back to that instant, the precise moment when his stomach, or whatever passed off as his stomach, twisted and wrenched until some of the red stones were pushed out of his body. The cacophony of sensation made no sense at all, so Envy concentrated on what he knew, the basic principles that he could always find shelter on; killing Ed had always been one of those.

Except that his body was not precisely in the best condition and Envy suddenly found himself lying on the floor, his whole body acting like an inflamed, oversensitive nerve that wailed for attention, and unable to move. Bemused for a second, he blinked away the tears that gathered to obscure his vision, and then slowly brought himself upwards. He was sweating red water and, if he hadn't been so busy trying to ignore the fact he _wasn't_ fine, he would have noticed there was a puddle in the bed and a puddle forming around him. Red water wasn't blood, but it surely looked like it when it pooled and remained still, a physical testament of a truth Envy was trying hard to ignore.

He was falling apart.

Somehow, grinding his teeth and applying that single-minded-ness that was so intrinsic of him, Envy was suddenly standing before Ed, looming over the sleeping figure and shaking, but whether it was from the dizziness that was threatening to swallow him whole or the sheer _anger_ that was setting his veins on fire – or maybe it was just the pain that was resetting itself with a vengeance – it wasn't clear. Envy reached out for Ed's throat, unadjusted to the radical change in the brat – taller, thinner, older and just _queer_ – but still resolute to carry out his original intent, when Ed opened his eyes.

Envy would never know what happened then, except that Ed had wrapped his hand around his wrist, a hand that should have been metal but felt warm and _alive_, and felt his skin break at the smallest brush of it. Ed _couldn't_ be that strong, not without the automail, and still Envy felt his wrist bones shatter under the light contact and a scream tore out his throat as they did. Ed caught him when he fell, scrambling to prevent more harm, and only succeeding in sending Envy into a panic attack.

"Don't touch me!" The Sin growled as he trashed in his nemesis' grasp. "Fucking _shit_, don't touch me!"

Reality turned a lot sharper for Ed in that moment.

The past week replayed itself in his mind, the strange solicitude that made him move around, go out of his house more often than normal. Images flashed behind his eyelids, fitting themselves into the puzzle that was still by no means complete and allowing him to see just how fucked up he was. Ed cradled the sobbing Envy to his chest, like his mother had done to him countless time when he was a child, running a soothing hand over the mass of green that fell limply and nearly covered them both. Why was he taking care of Envy? Envy had _killed_ him, once. All those lifetimes ago, when he was an Elric and broken, still trying to defy the sun everyday. Ed held the homunculus closer, eyes half lidded as his mind tried to grasp some sense into his sudden impulse to _protect_ Envy.

The oroborus on the Sin's thigh was swollen, standing up angry and red against the fragile skin that was breaking and bruising wherever it brushed against anything. Entranced, and wondering why he wasn't panicking yet, Ed rubbed the mark with an idle finger, feeling Envy stiffen against him. His thumb traced the outline of the snake, morbidly taken by the red water that _oozed_ out behind his touch, the shivering that it caused in the body against his.

Maybe it was because Envy was the last link between him and his old life, the one real spectator that had seen Edward Elric fall to pieces not once, but _always_. Maybe it was because Ed ached to find someone _else_ who knew him, someone who knew the darkest corners of his mind and who didn't look at him any differently because of it. Maybe it was because he had nothing to hide from Envy, because Envy didn't _matter_; if Envy hated him, it was for a reason he would never fully understand, but which had nothing to do with who he dreamed of or what he quietly wished for at night.

"It's gonna be okay," Ed said suddenly, smiling softly but without an ounce of understanding to his own predicament, "I promise."

Envy wanted to spit, to hiss and to be _threatening_ again. He wanted to feel the power rush through his veins as he stood up and broke the damnable brat's neck with the ease one crushed a hope, but he couldn't. He felt his skin sticking to the brat's clothing when he carried him back to bed; held back another cry when it _stayed_ on the brat rather than on him, when Ed placed him back on bed. Envy choked another sob when he felt his muscles – whatever passed off as muscle within him – twist around like a viscous _un_-thing, insubstantial when he needed his strength the most.

He raised a hand to claw Ed's eyes out of his face, but he was unconscious by the time his arm started moving.

* * *

The fourth day since Envy had awoken, Ed realized he might have not planned this new project of his as thoroughly as he had first thought. Envy continued to suffer panic attacks, loosing red water and stones at every opportunity and his 'health', for lack of better wording, was not improving in the least. Ed didn't know much about homunculi, but he was certain it wasn't normal for them to throw up the very stones that maintained them alive in the first place, nor they were known for falling to pieces at the smallest touch.

It was the red stones that kept Ed on his toes, really. Envy continued to throw them up at the smallest chance, heaving violently and shaking until Ed feared he would dismember himself by trembling alone. And the stones themselves were _wrong_; instead of the shinny, clear surface that glinted weakly on its own, Envy's regurgitated stones turned to solid rock seconds after they came in contact with air and crumbled to a thin, weightless dust when Ed tried to pick them up. Not spent so much as they were burnt away to nothing, useless.

One needn't be a rocket scientist to figure out what would happen to Envy once he ran out of stones to vomit all over Ed's floor.

On that vein, the blond alchemist allowed his mind to run in circles, trying to figure out _what_ was wrong with the homunculus or the stones or the _world_ and what could he do to help. So far, Envy refused to eat and Ed had to wrestle him – much to his annoyance – to clean the residues of red water off his skin. Once, while Ed was trying to dry his back, a whole strip of skin had simply come off and Ed had had to run to the bathroom, least _he_ threw up all over the bed. Envy's regenerative powers were off mark, too, as it had taken more than two hours for the damage to be mended properly.

The Sin hadn't given him a clue as to what was wrong with him, either; he didn't trust Ed.

Whenever he was awake and the pain was more or less bearable, he observed his caretaker with a very feline, very calculative glint in his eyes, following his movements as if he were expecting Ed to turn and finish what his body had started already. Not entirely unexpected, but it disturbed Ed somewhat, considering _he_ had not a clue _why_ he was suddenly so kind to what could be summed up as his worst enemy. Tension rose considerably as days bled one into another, each second more tedious than the one before as the fight brewed neatly between them.

Conscious he was getting nowhere and worried time was running out for Envy – though he didn't want to think too much about _why_ he cared about that last bit –, Ed sat on his desk the fourteenth day Envy had spent under his roof and spread a white sheet of paper before him. He was well aware he was going to get yelled at – he deserved it, really – but he couldn't think of anyone else he could ask for help… he wasn't desperate enough to call Al on this, mostly because while his younger brother would have been of great moral support, Ed didn't think he could stand the idea of Mustang entering his little house, knowing the _bastard_ was sleeping with his brother. _Concentrate_. Dispelling that train of thought, Ed raised his pen and began scratching the paper methodically, his handwriting resembling something readable as he chose his words carefully.

Russell was prone to fits of overbearing concern and overreactions, after all.

It took him an unusual amount of courage to let the letter slip into the mailbox but when he returned home, there was another batch of crumbling stones decorating the floor of Envy's room and a sourly homunculus that was just itching to pick up a fight to keep his mind away from the proverbial Pandora box that he hadn't just peeked in so much as he had ripped open for the world to see.

Ed stopped thinking in metaphors when Envy tried, in vain, to get a raise out of him with an old jab about his height.

* * *

_Review!_  



	3. King of Pain

**Story Title:** Pieces of a Dream.  
**Chapter Title:** King of Pain.  
**Pairing(s):** Edward Elric/Envy; nods to Roy Mustang/Alphonse Elric and Edward Elric/Alfons Heiderich; one-sided/platonic Russell Tringham/Edward Elric  
**Beta:** No one, yet.  
**Rating:** R, this chapter. R, overall (uncensored version avaliable back on my LJ).  
**Genre:** Angst, Romance.  
**Warnings:** Post anime, more or less consistent with movie canon, violence, gore.  
**Feedback:** Very welcome, please!  
**Word Count:** +/- 2 034.  
**Summary:** This is not what they need. This is not what they want. This is what they have, to build up something from ashes of their dreams.  
**Author's Notes:** No one ever told Russell that three's a crowd. Also, I don't believe I'll get a chance to point this out in the fic proper, so mentioning it now, Ed's probably on his late twenties in this.nods Thought you'd like to know. I hope the time-fugue between the two first scenes doesn't confuse anyone. ;

* * *

**Pieces of a Dream. **

King of Pain.

_"There's a king on a throne with his eyes torn out.  
There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt.  
(...)  
There's a black-winged gull with a broken back.  
There's a little black spot on the sun today,  
It's the same old thing as yesterday.  
I have stood here before inside the pouring rain  
With the world turning circles running round my brain,  
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign  
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain."  
_ -- Alanis Morissette, "King of Pain."

They are touching him, and he hates it. No one's supposed to touch him, because no one's supposed to get close enough to touch him. He's _Envy_, he's untouchable by definition: four hundred years of practice at keeping stupid _anythings_ with their stupid hands and their stupid concerns away from him. He learned to break necks and snap spines just to ensure no one would ever be close enough to do it to him; he learned to change his face and his eyes so that people would mistake him with someone else and keep their chubby, ugly fingers to themselves. He has lied, killed, deceived, stolen and more, simply for the pleasure to persist in his own, private pariah state.

And still, they're touching him.

Tiny hands, clawed hands, like the ones he had once, when he was like them. But now he's not like them, he's _himself_, not _him_, but still _someone else_. He's different from them, different from _everyone_ and they have no right to touch him. He doesn't want them to touch him, it makes him feel dirty and used and completely unlike himself. If they don't touch him, he can pretend he's pure, that the distance he keeps is not only an illusion to prevent the same damn hurt to happen over and over again.

Tiny purple eyes, slitted eyes, like his only not, staring down at him as he's dragged down and out into the golden _nothingness_ that's slowly giving him a headache. Eyes that haven't watched the sun shinning in a late summer afternoon, or watched the northern lights from the balcony of a luxurious palace in an opulent city of Drachma, or watched blood pour out a panting body until it falls back lifeless and slack, or watched the glorious glow of red that comes when a thousand souls blend into a single stone. Those eyes are like his, only not, because those are unseeing eyes, innocent in their un-perverted wickedness, and he hates them.

And the hands… those chubby, alien, _cold_ hands, they're still touching him.

He remembers being touched before, why he hates the contact of skin on skin so vehemently. He remembers having a different name and a different face, having a home to go back to and parents that were more or less competent. He remembers and he doesn't want to be or have that ever again, because he still remembers the stench of sulphur and the haughty voice that told him he was doing everything wrong again. He remembers the burning pain that melted his lungs away and the unrelenting darkness that threatened to swallow him whole if only he lost his balance and forgot his own name.

Eventually, he _did_ forget that name, but it didn't matter anymore, because he has a new one now and it's _fine_.

Envy has always walked forward, to the future and giving the past a 'fuck you, no' sign of no return; paradoxically, his future used to stand in center with the past, in an ironic interpretation of the Oroborus that he really didn't – and doesn't – appreciate. Hohenheim is the crux of everything that has gone wrong in his life and unlife, but now Hohenheim is gone… now Envy remembers, sharply, all those things he'd forgotten during the course of four long centuries of doing _nothing_.

Maybe it's the touch of those tiny fingers, the way the sharp nails scratch his sensitive skin, causing a rippling in the very fabric of his mind and forcing back echoes of things he hasn't care to think about until now. He's starting to remember places and people, faces he's worn and lives he's taken; all sharp and blurry at the same time.

Envy wants the stupid hands to stop touching him, wants them to stop touching him _now!_

"---the hell you can!"

The voice comes out of nowhere, and only when he hears it, he realizes they're there. The tiny, black, clawed, _horrendous_ hands tighten their hold on him as the spellbound silence is broken by bits and pieces of a shouted conversation. Envy feels his breathing hitch, his muscles spasm and a shadow of familiar – all too familiar – pain running its clammy fingers up and down his spine.

"---Stupid---not even _human_---fucktart!"

This is a voice he can't recognize and he panics for a moment, before forcefully reminding himself that he's _Envy_ for fuck's sake and he's not afraid of _anything_, much less a rumbling no one that insists on shouting one out of six words he speaks. Even if the voice is deep and rough at the edges, like a sonic slash to his senses. In his mind, the disembodied voice takes shape, tall and forbidding, threatening Envy with the same violent snarl that Greed had perfected decades ago.

"---drag me all the way for _this_---fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_---"

Envy takes small comfort in the knowledge Greed is _dead_, but the hands are still touching him.

The skin is raw where the hands are rubbing and he thinks, only for a moment, that if he were someone else, the situation might even be arousing. Someone like Lust, maybe, or Pride. But not him, because he doesn't _believe_ in all that stupid mockery of sex and pleasure. It's all human _shit_, and Envy doesn't want anything to do with the filthy assholes that rut around like single-minded _animals_.

Envy's got his dignity – and little else – after all.

"Are you done now?"

And that voice silences all the protests, causing the hands that were choking him to pull back as if scalded. It takes Envy a moment to realize it's _Edward fucking Elric_ that's soothing him with his pathetic, half-whining whispers that resonate just as clearly as any bellow. He would laugh, if he could breath, but since he can't, he doesn't and it's all too fucking _wrong_.

Envy tries to convince himself he's reassured by the sound of the velvety voice simply because it proves he _does_ have a purpose after all, something to do now that he remembers the satisfying _crunch_ of a body between serpentine jaws and the delightful taste of blood that was once his own coating his tongue and nearly gagging him with the sheer _rightness_ of it.

"I know who he is, Russell, _of course_ I know who he is," Ed's talking now, voice bouncing around Envy and seemingly crushing him with weightless strength; for some reason, his tone is shadowy and Envy doesn't like it, he wants a challenge, goddamnit, he wants _the_ challenge he knows that's lurking underneath Edward Elric, just waiting to spring out and make a racket; "He _killed_ me, once. Long, long time ago," And yes, Envy _remembers_, the sight and the smell and the _taste_ of Edward's life tugging at his arm, "But then again, long time ago, I killed him too."

Yes, Envy remembers that too, the light and the pain and the sheer _power_ that coursed through his veins and into the Gate, the tiny hands pulling him in with his stolen prize. He remembers the acid that ate away his body – _his_ –, how everything turned bright and golden and _wrong_ while he was cradled by the tiny black hands, observed by the tiny purple eyes… much like he is now.

Now.

_Now. _

"I know what I'm doing."

Envy wakes up from delirium and plunges into his dream and falls back into the blissful silence of unconsciousness.

* * *

Russell came into Ruath one late autumn afternoon. He was scowling as he passed the main street and right down pissed off when he walked the small pebbled way into Ed's front door. When Ed opened the door, his taller friend decked him a right hook that sent him stumbling backwards until he ended up sprawled on his own carpet and blinking in bemusement as Russell fumed.

"What are you doing here?" Was all the former State Alchemist could say, staring in fascination at the raged fury that twisted Russell's expression into something resembling _him_, in his better days as a hot-headed idiot.

Ed thought mournfully for a moment that _that expression_ was probably why Mustang was always mocking him.

"What am I doing here? _What am I doing here?!_" If the taller blond raised his voice the tiniest bit more, Ed feared the roof would fall upon them – not to mention wake up Envy and wouldn't _that_ just be wonderful about just then? "What were you _thinking_?"

"Wha-" But Russell's in a tirade and Ed has no hope of cutting him off now.

"Restoring a homunculus? _Envy_ of all monsters you could choose from? Asking _me_ for help about it?" Large hands grabbed the front of his shirt and suddenly Ed was being shaken violently, "Ed, what's _wrong_ with you?"

Golden eyes stared blankly for a moment as Ed tried to remember what one was supposed to _do_ in a situation like that. Years ago, while he was still chasing the unreachable dream, Ed would have snapped wildly and probably attempted to maim the taller blond a bit. Years ago, when he had his brother shadowing him from within his metal cage, Ed would have hissed and spit and generally just been a loud, reckless asshole. Years ago, Ed wouldn't have smiled the way he did right then and there, and he wouldn't have even considered hugging Russell once he was put down.

Years ago, Edward Elric hadn't known the value of true _friendship_. Years ago, Edward Elric was a pompous _idiot_ that didn't know better and whose immaturity probably caused more than half of the things he was trying to atone to.

"Do you want some tea?" He asked his smile still in place, deepened a bit by the befuddlement it caused in Russell when he saw it, "I'll get you a cup, c'mon."

* * *

Edward Elric was being nice to him. _Him_. Envy.

Edward _fucking_ Elric. The Fullmetal Pipsqueak. The blond brat. The bastard's son. He was being nice. To him.

Envy thought he had finally gone insane.

Of course it wasn't nice _nice_, more like reluctant, three quarters unwilling nice, but still nice nonetheless. Envy was confused, and more than a little willing to admit to it. Granted, he'd never landed into his victims-to-be clutches in such a weakened state – the very idea was _preposterous_ – but he had the sinking feeling that if he _did_, said victims wouldn't be… _cuddling_ him. Not that Ed was actually cuddling him – Envy would _kill_ him, even if he died while doing it, if he dared – but the sentiment was the same. Ed came by every morning, ate breakfast before he woke up and then wrestled him until he had forced something down his throat, more literally than Ed cared to admit, before disappearing for a while. He came back during lunch and did the same at dinner time. He was always boiling water and rubbing Envy's skin raw, taking away the waste red water that _oozed_ out of his pores at every fucking moment, and didn't complain about the stench of decay that was clinging on him.

It was disturbing in a way gutting rotting corpses couldn't even compare to, and Envy wondered.

There was also the _other_ brat – Russell, by the way Ed called him in a very put upon voice – and _he_ acted in a more or less normal way. He glared darkly at Envy as he watched Ed from the doorway, always scowling and looking like he had sucked on a sour lemon, but it only took Envy a week and a half to figure out the blond flag post was _jealous_. He couldn't, for the life of him, fathom _why_, but at least it was a slice of amusement to keep his mind from more dangerous, unknown territory.

Like the fact he continued to throw up stones and grow weaker each day.

Like the fact he was getting used to the daily grind of having Edward coming and going in and out of his personal space as he saw fit.

Like the fact he was _running out of insults_ to throw.

Edward Elric was being nice to him. Envy wondered what the world had come to.

* * *

_Review?_


	4. Like the Wings of a Butterfly

**Story Title:** Pieces of a Dream.  
**Chapter Title:** Like the Wings of a Butterfly.  
**Pairing(s):** Edward Elric/Envy; nods to Roy Mustang/Alphonse Elric and Edward Elric/Alfons Heiderich; one-sided/platonic Russell Tringham/Edward Elric  
**Beta:** No one, yet.  
**Rating:** R, this chapter. R, overall (Uncensored version will be post at my LJ).  
**Genre:** Angst, Romance.  
**Warnings:** Post anime, more or less consistent with movie canon, violence, gore.  
**Feedback:** Very welcome, please!  
**Word Count:** +/- 3 458.  
**Summary:** This is not what they need. This is not what they want. This is what they have, to build up something from ashes of their dreams.  
**Author's Notes:** Okay, this is probably the hardest chapter I've ever had to write in this fandom, because it's _hard _to tell you what I'm picturing in my mind. Also, I couldn't keep this shorter, damnit.

Un-censored version - but not much - available back at my LJ.

* * *

**Pieces of a Dream. **

Like the Wings of a Butterfly.

_"Heaven ablaze in our eyes  
We're standing still in time  
The blood on our hands is the wine  
We offer as sacrifice  
Come on, and show them your love  
Rip out the wings of a butterfly  
For your soul, my love  
Rip out the wings of a butterfly  
For your soul  
This endless mercy mile  
We're crawling side by side  
With hell freezing over in our eyes  
Gods kneel before our crime."  
_ -- HIM, "Wings of a Butterfly."

Every two weeks, early each Monday morning, an old, arthritic mailman rode his bike all the way to the small cottage just outside the small town to deliver a large yellow envelope with the Military's insignia in it. If the recipient were someone else, he would have complained loudly about silly, antisocial brats that didn't know better, but as it was, Edward Heiderich always gave him a generous tip for his trouble and a cup of 'tea' to counter the chill of dawn. The old man was bitter – wounds from the Ishbal war had left him nearly a cripple reduced to a pathetic job in the postal service after all – and snide and generally considered by the town's folk as _not-nice_. He couldn't hope to know that was precisely why he was allowed into the small house, why the blond young man bothered to give him something more than the very basic.

That, and because he never asked questions and Edward never volunteered information.

Every two weeks, early each Monday morning, Ed received a letter from himself, given to him by an old, arthritic old mailman. Van Hein was a good man, Ed figured, if a bit on the colder side of things. Nevertheless, his presence was always appreciated in the small, lonesome cabin. He sat with Ed to sip tea that was really more scotch than anything else, and both watched the sun coloring the forest into goldens and reds. Neither spoke about anything, not since the first morning Ed had greeted the sour-looking mailman with a pensive look and a quiet, almost hesitant 'want some tea, Mr. Hein?' and two weeks later, when Mr. Hein had snapped grudgingly 'Name's Van, kid,' and that was it.

That morning, the yellow envelope rested on the counter by the sink, the two men drank quietly and everything was just normal, except not. Golden eyes peered discretely at the old man, wondering if he had any clue of the disaster that was brewing behind the closed door that connected the kitchen with the rest of Ed's little world. Probably not.

When Van finally left, Ed rinsed their cups, feeling the scotch swirl inside him as the warmth spread along his limbs, alongside the courage needed to take his little silver platter to Envy's room – he didn't want to _know_ when it had gone from 'guest room' to 'Envy's room' – and sit through another fight. The fights were getting repetitive, too, with the same old insults and the same old jabs that did nothing to either of them and just left Ed weary and Envy tired.

Taking one last look outside, Ed noticed autumn was almost over. The few leaves that remained up in the battered trees were yellow, and the chill was getting more and more persistent. Dragging his eyes back to the task at hand, he ignored the letter – just another biweekly report on all the excitement that made up Alphonse's life and enthusiastic _ramblings_ on how good and wonderful and _gentle_ Mustang was – just as he always did. He would eventually open it, of course, no amount of spite against Mustang would keep Ed from knowing about his little brother, but it'd take time.

Ed wondered if his whole mess with Envy – nearly three weeks already, since he found the Sin – was enough of an excuse to write a letter to Alphonse.

* * *

Envy was getting better. 

He knew it the moment he woke up and realized there was no biting agony, no screeching pain, nothing. Just a faint empty feeling that he quickly labeled as hunger and that was _it_. Considering he had been reduced to the point he could barely twitch, it was good news. Maybe it was because he had thrown up all he could have possibly thrown up, up to the very last shard of red he had swallowed during four hundred something years. All of them. The pain was gone and he was feeling strangely _good_, but Envy knew he was at his weakest, the point where the smallest wound would be enough to do him in.

He wondered for a moment if this was why Ed had kept him, why he'd dealt with him all this time. Envy laughed at himself and decided that yes, _of course_ it was. The brat was just waiting for him to be as weak as he would ever be, falling to pieces right before his eyes, so that when he actually killed him off, Envy would be humiliated by his own pathetic display. Yes, that must have been it, from the very beginning, what Ed wanted was nothing else but make Envy suffer.

Envy was getting better but he forgot Ed was Ed was Ed was _not_ Envy, so he awaited his host and expected to be killed.

Outside, the wind blew away the last yellowed leaves and sung a mourning song for winter.

* * *

Russell scowled and protested the whole time, but Ed didn't hear him. 

Inside the tiny basement – a tornado bunker, the man who had sold him the house had told Ed at that time – the tubes and the pipes glinted eerily as the toxic water flowed from one into another, condensing and evaporating in turns. Russell refused to do it, he absolutely _refused_ to do anything that could remotely work in Envy's favor, but he couldn't let Ed do it alone. It didn't matter if the Fullmetal Alchemist was now considered the best alchemist of the century, red water was _deadly_ and Russell just _couldn't_ allow Ed to do something as stupid as get killed for Envy's sake.

_Envy's_.

He was bristling by the time Ed was done, a complete opposite to the beaming expression in his companion's face. Ed hadn't used alchemy in _years_. Not like that anyway, controlled, thought out alchemy, not panicked attempts to survive in the middle of a battlefield. Russell's sour face turned into something else when Ed smiled at him, golden eyes serene – Edward Elric's eyes had _never_ been serene – before he hugged him lightly.

"Thank you," Ed said as he pulled back, honest expression smoothing his features, "I know you don't get it, I know you don't like it, but it's important Russell, for me it is."

The younger man felt air grow scarce as Ed left the room, skin tingling under his clothes as the imprint of Ed against him stayed behind. He felt his whole body tremble with the intensity of the emotions that were threatening to take his heart, rip it apart into a thousand shards and scatter them to wherever the Northern Wind pleased to take them.

"Yeah," Russell replied long after Ed had disappeared, his voice bouncing into the walls, "Yeah, okay."

Russell Tringham didn't cry, not since his parents had died and even then, he hadn't had much time to make a racket like some senseless child. Fletcher had needed him to be strong and solid, so Russell had swallowed down the knot in his throat and had smiled and promised everything would be alright. Now he didn't have anyone to ask him to be strong, not Fletcher, not Ed, no one.

He figured no one would mind if he let out a sob or two, a symbolic toss to his own stupid nature to reach out for the unreachable; despite what he had claimed before, he wasn't an Elric, he wasn't meant to catch his own dreams. That was not how the world worked.

* * *

Envy was getting better, and Ed hadn't killed him yet. 

After the first batch of red stones, shiny and new, his body began to regain its former power. He could feel it, inside, how everything shifted and twisted, greedily taking in the offered sacrifice. It coursed through his veins, to the very last of his nerves, soothing the hurt that had tormented him for so long, helping him clear the fog that insisted on mixing his memories with his current sensations into one big, fucked up _mess_.

But still, Ed had _fed_ him. He had come into the room, smiled in that eerie way that made Envy's insides dance with apprehension and then just… fed him. The very things he needed the most, as if that had been his intention from the start. Which couldn't have been of course, because no one, _no one_ ever did something remotely nice for Envy. That was just _not_ how the world worked. People feared Envy, the braver – and the more stupid – ones disdained him, but no one ever tried to be nice, because Envy was a _monster_ and people never got close to monsters.

Envy had never let anyone close enough to even _try_.

It was baffling, really, this strange one-eighty degree change in Ed's attitude, and Envy just had to figure it out. He was sure that once he found the ulterior motive, once he caught on with the brat's silly scheme, things would go back to normal. He was Envy, after all, and Ed was Ed, and being… _friendly_ – Envy felt the urge to throw up something that certainly wasn't stones at the very idea – was not something they did. They hated each other.

Hate, Envy could understand, could deal with. This pseudo-truce he had been forced to accept merely because he was too weak to do something else, no, not so much. So he laid back on the small bed, ignoring the pleasant sensation of clean linens against his skin and the cheerful birds singing outside the window, and just thought. Good and hard, because there was nothing he couldn't understand, there was nothing he couldn't learn to hate.

Even kindness.

_Especially_ kindness.

Ed was probably just waiting for him to be back to full health to take him head on. Yeah, that sounded reasonable enough. Ed wanted to fight him like they had fought under Central, with both on them strong enough to hold their own side of the battle. Ed was too _proud_ to kill Envy while he couldn't defend himself, even though he probably knew Envy wouldn't do the same for him. Yes. That was _it_. Satisfied with his conclusion – ignoring all possible logic mistakes in it – Envy snuggled back against the pillow and smiled a little. If that was what the brat wanted, Envy was feeling magnanimous enough to wait for him to give the first hit.

It wasn't like Ed had the smallest chance to _win_, anyway.

* * *

By the time the first snow came, casting little specks of glinting ice that covered everything as far as the eye could see, Envy was feeling strong enough to slip out the bed and stretch his stiff limbs. In nearly half a century, he couldn't remember spending so much time on bed, never mind the same _room_. He did it only when neither Ed nor Russell were nearby, though, because he didn't want to lose the upper hand. As long as those two thought he was too weak to stand on his own, he could turn around and kick their sorry asses into next week with ease. 

Of course, he was probably too weak still to kick their asses properly, but that wasn't the point.

Envy had always liked winter, or at least he didn't dislike it so much as he did summer and spring, and he felt the strange need to go outside and feel the snow between his toes. So he did.

One night – the thirty-seventh night he had spent under Ed's roof – he woke up and carefully slid out of bed, before padding soundlessly into the kitchen and out into the backyard. It wasn't so much a backyard as an extension of the forest itself, but it was wild and cold and _open_, much welcomed after so many days standing the monotony of four walls painted in bland beige – Envy had spent two days debating with himself whether the walls were light yellow or dirty white, before deciding it was probably meant to be beige after all.

It felt good, to be outside and feel the cold biting his body, the wind ruffling his hair almost like a caress. He wasn't human, he wasn't sure he was even _alive_, but that feeling of absolute freedom that only wild nature could inspire, that was probably the closest he would ever get to it. It reminded him of Drachma, that disastrous stay Dante had orchestrated nearly two hundred years ago and which had only accomplished adding a new thorn – Greed – in Envy's side. It reminded him of the desert beyond Ishbal, before he did his job and started the war, how it was ample and threatening in its impassiveness. How it had turned savage and _red_ after the first shot, how it seemed to rage alongside its children after Envy detonated the spark of destruction there.

"Huh?" Envy narrowed his eyes as he caught sight of movement in the corner of his eye, turning around as fast as he could – slower than he should have been, though – and stretched out a hand to claw at whoever had sneaked on him.

He blinked curiously at the sight of the golden butterfly caught in his grip. The tiny insect fluttered uselessly, already dying and well past its season. It struggled against his fingers. It was a beautiful creature, its golden scales glinting weakly under the pale light of the moon and its delicate antennae twitching erratically as it panicked. Envy held it close to his face, eyes noting the delicate pattern in its wings, faint black lines that swirled around. It must have been magnificent while it was young, freshly out of its cocoon, but now it was battered and almost inert.

With a snort, Envy ripped its wings off, killing the insect with an irritation he couldn't explain, simply because he didn't understand his own metaphors.

* * *

It was purely by accident that he saw them as he tried to slide back to his room, the golden wings still held in his right hand. 

"I worry about you, Ed," Russell's voice was soft as Envy had never heard it – probably because Russell had no soft things to say to _him_ – and the homunculus paused in front of the door to the brat's room, "I really do."

"It's alright," Ed tried to sound convincing, but Envy could tell he was trying to convince himself, "_I_'m alright."

"Are you really?"

There was a queer huskiness in the younger man's voice, something that made Envy stand up a little straighter and peer curiously through the ajar door. Ed was standing against his window, cornered by a blond that was at least a head and a half taller than him, and who seemed to be leaning in with a very clear intent. Envy held back a snort; he really didn't need to know who the brat was fucking. But just as he was about to go back, disgusted sneer in his face, Ed turned his head to the side so that Russell's lips caught his neck rather than his mouth.

Envy arched an eyebrow. In his very limited experience, that was _not_ how things were supposed to go.

Now vaguely interested – he didn't bother to try and explain why everything Ed did was interesting, it just _was_ – he moved so that he could see a bit better, and strained his ears to listen.

"---me away, it's not fair." Russell's words were slightly muffled by Ed's neck, but for all the ardor the younger alchemist was showing, Ed looked rather uncomfortable.

"I really don't think it's a good idea," Ed said quietly, his voice holding a defeated quality Envy had never heard before – not coming from him, anyway, "Let me go Russell."

The former State Alchemist pulled back and slid away, going straight for the door and Envy wondered why he wasn't moving away yet; he didn't want to get caught, really.

"I love you."

Envy mentally congratulated Russell for his ruthless manipulative skills – at least _he_ thought that was what they were – when Ed paused midstep and looked down. The homunculus cursed the blond bangs since they obscured his vision of his nemesis' eyes, the windows to his mind. Russell walked up to his companion, placing each hand on a shoulder and gently pulling the unresisting body against his chest.

"I love you," He repeated, mouthing the words against Ed's neck.

Envy expected Ed to explode into a rant at any moment, that was what he remembered the brat did best after all, but to his surprise – and a strange, quiet feeling he couldn't name – Ed turned with a growl and kissed the taller man in a decidedly aggressive way. If it weren't for the fact those were _tongues_, Envy would have admitted that was quite a spectacular battle. The long haired blond cornered his partner until Russell fell into the bed, hair mussed, cheeks flushed and mouth parted invitingly.

Strangely enough, Ed looked _angry_, rather than aroused, but then again, Envy couldn't really know better.

What followed was a strange dance of ripped clothes, scratching fingers and grotesque sounds that blended into one big _disgusting_ show. Envy didn't know why he kept watching: maybe he wanted to see if things got better and he could finally figure out _why_ people seemed to like sex so much. Because if all of it was as violent and painful as this looked, humanity would have already become extinct long ago. But no, it kept going the same, just as fierce, just as _wrong_ as it had started and Envy convinced himself, once more, that he really didn't like sex at all.

No matter what strange sounds Russell was making as he threw his head back, thighs quivering as he kept them wide open, having Ed slid his _cock_ into him couldn't be pleasant. And the expression on the brat's face, that sort of grimace but not as he thrust his hips furiously; Envy thought he was trying to _kill_ Russell, rather than make things pleasurable.

Envy gagged, more so when Russell cradled the sobbing Ed to his chest, looking almost sincerely worried.

"Ed?" Russell appeared to be panicking, but Envy didn't know if it was an act or not, "God, Ed. Are you okay? Did I hurt you? Ed?"

The homunculus slipped away unnoticed, huffing in disdain. To burst out in tears in the middle of it! That brat was really a crying baby, after all. Snorting in disgust, he stepped back into his room, trying to dispel the images from his mind. Only when he tried to brush his hair off his face did Envy notice the fine golden powder on the fingers of his right hand, the last remains of the crushed wings he'd destroyed unconsciously while he watched the strange show.

He wondered why the tiny scales reminded him of Edward somehow.

* * *

It was almost dawn when Russell came into his room. 

Despite his pretentious plans to shock him and Ed with his sudden mobility, Envy choked a squeak when Russell settled on his chest and wrapped his hands around his neck. He could move, sure, but he wasn't strong enough to throw the bastard off him and kick his sorry ass all the way to New Year. Snarling, Envy bared his teeth in a threatening display.

Russell wasn't fazed.

"Fuck you," The blond hissed venomously, his grip tightening around Envy's windpipe, "Fuck you, this is your _fault_!"

The homunculus thought back about the night before and the strange display he'd observed, wondering for a moment if that was what all the fuss was about. If so, Envy thought Russell was overreacting a lot.

"Fuck, you broke him," The young man informed with a mix of despair and hatred, "He's trying to save you, you fucking freak of nature and you _broke_ him!"

Envy didn't know where he found the air to answer, but the words were out of his mouth before he thought them properly.

"But I didn't _rape_ him, did I?"

They probably saved his life, all things considered, since Russell stiffened and when Envy was sure he was going to tighten his grip again, he fled the room, pale as if he had seen a ghost. Envy sat up coughing, staring warily at the open door and didn't relax even when the front door slammed shut.

Russell didn't come to the little cottage afterwards and Envy thought for some reason that perhaps he hadn't been the only one to break golden wings the night before.

* * *

_Review?_


	5. Why?

**Story Title:** Pieces of a Dream.  
**Chapter Title:** Why?  
**Pairing(s):** Edward Elric/Envy; nods to Roy Mustang/Alphonse Elric and Edward Elric/Alfons Heiderich; one-sided/platonic Russell Tringham/Edward Elric  
**Beta:** No one, yet.  
**Rating:** R, this chapter. R, overall (Uncensored version will be post at my LJ).  
**Genre:** Angst, Romance.  
**Warnings:** Post anime, more or less consistent with movie canon, violence, gore.  
**Feedback:** Very welcome, please!  
**Word Count:** +/- 2 050.  
**Summary:** This is not what they need. This is not what they want. This is what they have, to build up something from ashes of their dreams.  
**Author's Notes:** Finally some proper EdEnvy! I sure took my sweet time with this, didn't I?

* * *

**Pieces of a Dream. **

Why?

_"You're sick of all the rules,  
Well I'm sick of all your lies.  
I've held back a wealth of shit, I think I'm gonna choke.  
I'm standing in the shadows with the words stuck in my throat.  
Does it really come as a surprise when I tell you I don't feel good?  
Nothing ever came from nothing man,  
Oh man, ain't that the truth."  
_ -- Garbage, "Why do you love me?" 

_Why do you stay with me? _

"He made me laugh," Ed concluded after a long silence, sitting on his uncomfortable chair by the window and talking to the silence and certainly not Envy.

Envy hm'ed.

"I mean, Al made me laugh too, hell even _Mustang_ made me laugh on occasion. Alfons was different, though," He sighed warily, resting his chin on his folded arms, which were resting on the edge of the open window, "He made me laugh because I was _happy_, kinda silly, of course, since I _wasn't_, but I felt that way."

Envy was starting at the ceiling, his hands folded behind his head as he counted the tiny formations in the plaster that prevented the ceiling from leaking water onto him at night. He was almost done decoding the secret shapes when Ed sighed loudly, loud enough to break his concentration and lay three hours to waste. Envy couldn't remember where he had been looking, so he moved his gaze to the corner, where the ceiling and the two walls met. With a pensive _Hm_, he began the exercise again.

It was better than listening to the brat talk about nonsense. The fact Envy couldn't _flee_ the room didn't mean he _had_ to pay attention, after all.

"I'm not making any sense, am I?" Ed rolled his eyes as he chuckled wryly.

Envy shrugged; no, of course he wasn't making any sense, but that was kinda okay, since as long as he didn't, Envy wouldn't get _too_ bored. Besides, whatever sigh-worthy mushy shit was torturing the brat – which Envy had _not_ caused, damnit, he never got any fun anymore – seemed to be unsolvable. The constant sighing was annoying, the knowledge that the brat was suffering made up for it.

"It'll snow again tonight."

Although Envy didn't miss the abrupt change of topic, he didn't mind. He'd come to realize he was feeling particularly _accommodating_ after Russell left the small cabin – something Ed had yet to acknowledge, instead of his nonsensical, flowery feelings for a dead brat – and he really didn't mind much things. Most of his time, he merely antagonized the brat to see if he would finally turn around and attempt to fight, but true to his own vow, which was more for his own amusement than anything else, he hadn't thrown the first punch – at least not the first _physical_ punch.

"I'll just go get you another blanket, okay?"

"Hm," Envy said, once Ed had scurried out of the room, and wondered why he was suddenly not in the mood to find shapes in the little bumps on the ceiling anymore.

* * *

_Why can't I kill you? _

The first time he tried – his patience already wasted away to nothing after waiting for a confrontation that wasn't going to happen – he had felt relatively competent and sure his strength would last long enough. Envy was a master of observation, simply because the first rule of the histrionic arts is that in order to play a part, one must know the part by heart. And what better way to know, than to watch closely the comings and goings of the character-to-be?

Yes, Envy knew how to watch, how to catch details that gave away what others hoped to hide. Under Dante's thumb, more than once had he proven his usefulness by pointing out the blatant lies hiding behind their alleged allies when they attempted, foolishly, to pass through him. He was a master in deceit, in quiet lies and death delivered with a smile.

So his frustration was much when his first attempt to deliver the blasted brat his due failed spectacularly and Envy couldn't blame anyone but himself.

The knife was sharp, he'd tasted it on his own palm before finding the brat, watching with morbid content as the open skin sewed itself back together and little more than a brief flash of pain came with it. The brat was alone, too, so no one could have come to his rescue and the intoxicating feeling that came along with that knowledge was he nothing had ever felt before; not in Ishbal, not in Central, not in that queer world beyond the Gate.

And still, once he had the knife safely pressed against Ed's neck, feeling the skin tremble under the blade, Envy found he couldn't.

It wasn't that the brat was resisting – Envy was surprised by the suddenly docile blond lying limply in his grasp – or that he was _unwilling_, because the Gate knew he wanted nothing more than to see that soul finally leave that wrenched body for once and for all. No. That wasn't it. But then? Why couldn't he bring himself to do it? Just a clean slice, he had enough strength to severe the goddamn head in a single motion.

And then, Ed smiled.

"It's okay," The brat said, resting in an almost _snuggly_ way against him, "I couldn't do it either."

Envy remained locked up in his room for two days afterwards, too frustrated to think straight.

* * *

_Why don't you _hate_ me? _

Envy hadn't bothered to go out of the cabin except to get some fresh air at night, not because he was still weak – which he was, though he _wasn't_ going to acknowledge the fact – but because he found himself oddly curious about the various items thrown carelessly around each room. Books he read despite the fact he knew nothing about alchemy and notebooks he flipped through only because it made Ed's brow furrow slightly when he caught him doing it.

There were also photo albums, _dozens_ of them, and he passed through the captured moments with a detached amusement, making up background stories for each shot. One with Ed and the armor, or the whole military crew, or simply Ed and what-was-her-name from Rizembul. He wasn't really interested in the photographs themselves; he only wanted something to pass the time while he came up with a good way to kill off the brat. Despite Ed's almost haunting words a few days before, Envy had his own theory about the incident.

It wasn't that he _couldn't_ kill Ed; just like that it wouldn't be _right_ if he did so without the proper drama.

After all the humiliation he had been put through, all the insults and all the sheer _unfairness_ the brat had bestowed upon him, Envy realized it just wouldn't do to kill the brat and be done with it. It had to be done right, in the right moment and _just_ enough suffering and agony to make things fair again. Revenge was all about proper execution, after all.

Yet among the towers of glossy images he had found, he came across a very interesting one. One where Ed was being hugged by a taller blond with a gentle smile and bright blue eyes. For a moment, Envy thought it was his brother, but brothers didn't generally hugged _that_ way and as utterly fucked up their family was – and he knew it _was_ fucked up, first hand and all – they weren't _that_ fucked up. Consequently, Envy assumed the blond to be the 'Alfons' Ed liked to talk about so much, despite the fact Envy rarely, meaning _never_, showed any interest in his stories. A plan began to form in his mind, one that might actually be _bad_ enough to be _the plan_. Although Envy hadn't used his power in a while, he felt strong enough to try, so he stalked out of the living room and began searching for the brat. It was just an idea, one that had potential to break the damnable midget beyond repair, and he was going to try it.

Envy hadn't expected to find the brat in the shower, but he wasn't really thrown off. He _was_ a shape shifter, he knew the human body inside out better than anyone and he had already _seen_ Ed's body doing all kinds of wicked things that he really shouldn't be remembering at all.

Water fell down from the showerhead, cascading over the brat's body and glistering weakly under the yellow light of the lamp; it did queer things to Ed's eyes and even queerer things to Envy's brain. Despite the wide eyed stare he got when he stomped into the bathroom without a care, he plastered the single most sinister grin at his disposal and gathered light at his feet as he transformed.

He had expected Ed to be angry, by default.

He had also expected Ed to break down into incoherency and tears.

He hadn't expected Ed to lean back against the tile wall with a pained moan, eyes closed and arms loosely hugging himself. He was uncomfortable, but he wasn't in _agony_ and Envy felt himself frowning the borrowed brow in consternation. When he noted the brat was growing _hard_, he stared in disbelief.

"You're such a _whore_, Ed," Envy said almost amicably, leaning his weight on his right leg and allowing his hip to stick out petulantly. Ed moaned pitifully, "You just want to get fucked, don't you?"

Oh, _priceless_, when Ed grew even _harder_ under the verbal slaughter. Envy found himself quite intrigued by the whole affair. When he gave a tentative step forward, the blond cringed back against the wall, yet made no motion to cover himself, his arousal or stop Envy from getting closer. His eyes were open, half lidded and troubled, but _open_. He was _watching_.

"Doesn't really surprise me at all, though," Envy sneered and stopped walking when he found himself soaked under the spray, the blond hair falling limply over his eyes – wide, almost child-like blue eyes – doing nothing to obscure his sneer.

Almost clinically, he reached down to touch his victim. It wasn't an erotic touch, merely fingers poking at bare skin, yet Ed arched up with a light whine. His eyes were still watching Envy. His rouse ruined, the shape shifter changed back onto himself, finding a new interest in the jaded creature that simply refused to die, even if it _wanted_ to die.

Ed shivered as the detached hand continued to trail at his skin, taking special interest in the scarring at his shoulder. He had his arm and his leg back, he was _whole_, but the marks remained, a physical memento of all the suffering and sacrifices that had taken to get him there. Envy stopped looking at him when the tips of his fingers caught the rough skin, his eyes fixing on the marks instead. For some reason, that felt far more intimate than if he'd touch him somewhere _else_, and Ed arched away from the touch, hissing when his back hit the cold tiles again.

He was hard. _Hard_. He could feel the heat throbbing in each and every vein, the tension in his nerves. Ed had never felt more aroused before, or nearly as mortified as he did. This wasn't right, this wasn't what he wanted. Ed felt a bubble of panic burst inside his chest as his heart hammered his ribs, his legs slowly growing boneless. Envy had to stop touching him; Envy shouldn't be touching him _at all_! Envy _hated_ him, that was why he helped him, because he _hated_ him and they hated each other and things were _fine_ when they were trying to kill each other.

Envy made Ed feel alive, always, but not like this… only Alfons had ever made him feel like _this_.

"Whore," Envy concluded plainly, running his knuckles over the scars, and looked down at Ed with a half lidded sneer, "Now you wish you hadn't chased Russell away, don't you?"

He was laughing when Ed tackled him, making them both fall on the cold, hard floor; but it died out slowly when he realized the boy was crying again. He ran a hand over the long blond strands – Ed had pretty hair, if anything – and noted that he was still very hard and pressing against him as he continued to sob pathetically. _Well_, the homunculus thought wryly, _not exactly as planned_. But Russell had proven to be a sore spot, as well as this... _arousal_ of Ed's, and both would serve in time.

Envy grinned, even if he didn't know _what_ he would do with that knowledge.

_Because I can. Because I can't. Because I want. Because I am. _

_Because._

* * *

_Review?_


	6. After the Afterglow

**Story Title:** Pieces of a Dream.  
**Chapter Title:** After the Afterglow.  
**Pairing(s):** Edward Elric/Envy; nods to Roy Mustang/Alphonse Elric and Edward Elric/Alfons Heiderich; one-sided/platonic Russell Tringham/Edward Elric  
**Beta:** No one, yet.  
**Rating:** R, this chapter. R, overall (Uncensored version at my LJ).  
**Genre:** Angst, Romance.  
**Warnings:** Post anime, more or less consistent with movie canon, violence, gore.  
**Feedback:** Very welcome, please!  
**Word Count:** +/- 1 750.  
**Summary:** This is not what they need. This is not what they want. This is what they have, to build up something from ashes of their dreams.  
**Author's Notes:** I'm going to hell for this, aren't I? And no, this isn't the end yet, two more chapters to go.

* * *

**Pieces of a Dream. **

After the Afterglow.

_"Night, lift up the shades,  
Let in the brilliant light of morning  
But steady there now,  
For I am weak and starving for mercy.  
Sleep has left me alone  
To carry the weight of unraveling where we went wrong;  
It's all I can do to hang on,  
To keep me from falling into old familiar shoes.  
(...)  
Everything changes,  
Everything falls apart,  
Can't stop to feel myself losing control  
But deep in my senses I know..."  
_ -- Sarah McLachlan, "Stupid." 

Climate grew harsher and harsher and temperature dropped steadily until the first blizzard struck the small town, flooding everything with snow. Envy stood outside, feeling the wind against his skin, the chill that would have been lethal, if he had been capable of dying. He listened to the stillness beneath the howl of the approaching storm, wondering the time that had gone by since his catastrophic arrival to this world. The days spent away to nothing, first in bed, later prowling around the small cabin, days he would not get back but which strangely he didn't miss. The grains slipped slowly through the hourglass, signaling another piece of eternity and forever that wasted itself over trivial matters, another loop in which the snake ate away everything and in which infinity still loomed in the distance, waiting patiently to come and remain. Always remain.

After the incident in the shower, nearly a week away, his advances towards Ed had changed in tone, but not in intention. Not really. He didn't like the brat; he didn't like his smile or his eyes or his stupid voice sounding mournful and hopeful at the same time, whenever he retold another strange adventure with the one that was his brother but wasn't. He didn't like the brat, not the smallest bit, but he still hadn't killed him. He hadn't touched him, either, despite the fact the tension between them soared when they were alone. He hadn't touched him, but he _watched_.

Envy told himself that as long he didn't touch, he wasn't tainted by the filth, and no matter how entrancing it was to watch Ed touch himself – he touched himself because Envy wouldn't touch him, he guessed – it was still filthy and human-like, so Envy wanted nothing to do with it whatsoever.

Except it became increasingly harder to _not_ touch, simply because Envy was a creature of whim. As much as his pride and dignity wouldn't allow him to, he still wondered what would happen if he gave in, if he brushed his fingers over the pale skin, if he traced the scars with his tongue. What would happen if he gave in and granted Edward the _privilege_ of knowing what it felt like to have his hands on him. Would the brat moan? Whimper wantonly like the whore he was? Would he _cry_?

Could he break Edward simply by giving into what they wanted, for better or for worse, and finish off what he'd put off for so long now?

Envy didn't know, but as Nature grew wild, relishing in winter as it came, he decided to let things fall on their own. They always did, anyway.

* * *

He hadn't meant to, despite his own wandering mind, he honestly hadn't meant to, only it happened and he didn't really regret it.

Sins didn't regret things, it wasn't in their nature, because that'd be too much like repentance.

Envy looked down at the flushed face, the sadness that curled along each corner of skin, the utter submission in those eerily dead eyes. Ed's hair fell around in a riot, framing his features in a halo that mocked them both with its apparent holiness; neither was holy in any way, Sinner and Sin, and it only served to inflame whatever foolish passion had driven them there. Experimentally, Envy arched his back, shifting his hips slightly, and both gasped.

He didn't like sex. He didn't _do_ sex, at all. It was gross and messy and painful and just not worth the effort, but there he was, after four hundred years of self-imposed celibacy, naked and towering over his equally naked nemesis, exploring the reactions with a cynic detachment that only made things more _real_. If Envy had let go of himself, his consciousness and his own mind, maybe the whole thing wouldn't be so bad. But he was aware, of everything to the smallest of the smallest details, expectant to every reaction and hating every second of it. If he had given in like an animal, he wouldn't have noticed the strange hitch in Ed's breath against his own, the faint tremble in his limbs, the rocky smile that promised tears by the end of it, the sheer _Ed-ness_ of the whole ordeal.

He'd seen it a thousand times before, he'd _done_ it, before, but not really _done_ it, because that wasn't him. Envy was an actor and the characters he played had lives and lovers and he had followed through a thousand times before. But his hair had never been green whilst he did it, and his skin hadn't glistered with his own sweat. And no one had seen the Oroborus swollen on his thigh, because he was _Envy_ and while the character might had followed the script, Envy had never allowed himself to be dragged by it.

When he moved, Ed cried out and the sound engraved itself so deeply into his mind, Envy knew he'd remember it forever.

It ended far too soon and still lasted onto eternity; the pushing, the pulling, the tender hands that wound into his hair and traced his pale skin almost reverently. Envy hated that touch, tentative and careful, the soft caressing that was so unlike everything they ever did. Ed was fierce and strong, he was a worthy rival, if anything, and Envy was not willing to give that up for a few moments of stolen bliss.

The scent, the taste, the touch… but it was the _pleasure_ that was going to drive him insane. It was unnatural, completely alien for a creature that had been made to destroy and consume and _hate_. He wasn't supposed to feel that way, to moan quietly when those obnoxious, chubby fingers found the mark of his birth on his thigh and scratched it almost tenderly.

Envy was soiled, thoroughly ruined and covered in human _grime_, but then Ed wrapped his arms around him, curled his legs on his hips and held onto him, uncaring of the fact they were still joined, and cried. 

And _that_, that mournful song of complete desolation, that shard of loneliness made sound… that made the entire wrenched experiment worth all the filth and grime and dirt in the world.

* * *

He never kissed him.

Envy allowed the need to rise between them, allowed himself to be touched and gave the uncanny privilege of touching in return, but he never kissed Ed. It was the last taboo he was not willing to break, because, strangely enough, no matter how many times they rutted, no matter how many times he sank into that all too welcoming heat, it was still impersonal. It was impersonal when Ed cried out his name and held onto him as if the world was falling apart – and maybe it was – and it was still impersonal when he burst into tears afterwards.

But if Envy kissed him, if he allowed the brat to stand closer than he already did, then it wouldn't be so cold anymore. It would be intimate.

It would be real.

Envy would kill before allowing it to degenerate into something of the sort.

"Here," Ed offered the card as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and perhaps it was natural for _him_, but Envy merely stared blankly at him, "Havoc game it after he got me too drunk to remember how to spell my own name."

Except Ed seemed dead set in making things harder than they were already.

The blond was busy rummaging through old boxes from his closet, more accurately cleaning after the mess of photographs Envy had left behind him after he'd gone through them. A handful of palpable memories gathering dust in a forgotten corner, relived only because a monster soiled them with his touch, his unnatural curiosity to know all there was to be known about his prey.

The Joker was battered, a corner torn off in a moment of fitful rage that Envy knew nothing about, and still cherished for what it represented. A tangible source of luck that justified the sheer unfairness of the world and the boy who had shouldered the blame of all the Sins there had been to purge. Regardless, Envy took it and a piece of Ed with it, because it was extremely petty and sentimental, but that seemed to be the theme between them, and who was he to go against the flow?

Maybe one day the Joker would tell a good joke, maybe one day the card would remain and retell the strange events that lead it to be held in a monster's hands. Maybe one day, far away in the unknown, but not yet.

* * *

Envy left with the first whisper of Spring.

It wasn't an ostentous fight or a horrible scene or something equally ludicrous, it was a quiet sense of emptiness which greeted Ed that chilly March morning, amidst puddles of muddied snow and which told him all there was to be told. He woke up alone and although he _always_ woke up alone, for the first time in about forever, he _felt_ alone. So he got up, not even bothering to get dressed and even welcoming the chill in the air, because it woke him fully into the ominous silence that crystallized itself into fear. He walked each room of the cabin, analyzed in detail each corner there was to be found, and simply the absence of it made him ache.

It was stupid of course, since he had already known it would happen. Since the very start, he had known Envy would leave. Maybe he hadn't expected to be alive when he did, but _he had known_.

Knowing hadn't made the pain go away, though, and as Ed stood in the backyard, feeling the cold of moist earth sweeping into his feet, course through his legs and set deep into his chest, he allowed himself a hoot of laughter. It wasn't mirthful, but it wasn't entirely sad either. It was just a scream fragmented into each breath, a chuckle that held more tears than he felt capable to shed.

Envy was gone, and Ed was left alone to pick up the pieces of their sorry afterglow.

* * *

_Review!_  



	7. Pieces of a Dream

**Story Title:** Pieces of a Dream.  
**Chapter Title:** Pieces of a Dream.  
**Pairing(s):** Edward Elric/Envy; nods to Roy Mustang/Alphonse Elric and Edward Elric/Alfons Heiderich; one-sided/platonic Russell Tringham/Edward Elric  
**Beta:** No one, yet.  
**Rating:** R, this chapter. R, overall (Uncensored version at my LJ).  
**Genre:** Angst, Romance.  
**Warnings:** Post anime, more or less consistent with movie canon, violence, gore.  
**Feedback:** Very welcome, please!  
**Word Count:** +/- 5 329.  
**Summary:** This is not what they need. This is not what they want. This is what they have, to build up something from ashes of their dreams.  
**Author's Notes:** I realize this doesn't seem a 'nice' ending, but I like it. This chapter is also all about Ed, to counterbalance all the Envy in the previous ones. There's also more depth about Ed's state of mind and why he's doing what he's doing. I left all that unexplained and purposely until now, because the climax unfolds better this way. There's RoyAl, too, be warned. Also, fuck, if I have to rewrite this again I'll _scream_.

* * *

**Pieces of a Dream. **

Pieces of a Dream

_"Now I'm lost in restless nights.  
Just a whisper of the life that we created.  
Shadows falling,  
I am calling...  
And I could see it clearly,  
Once, when you were here with me.  
And now somehow all that's left  
Are pieces of a dream."  
_ -- Anastasia, "Pieces of a Dream."

There is a bond between Alchemist and Alchemy, an unshakeable knowledge of The Truth that binds Artist and Masterpiece forever onwards. Many didn't acknowledge it, not in a growing society where the Great Arcana had lost its mystic value and had been degraded to a common science. No, in Amestris, Alchemy and Alchemist were merely work and worker, nothing beyond the explicit relationship that formed between Creator and Creation. In Xing, however, what little remained of Alchemy was learned through reverence, the sacred power that came from Earth itself and which bound each living and non-living creature into the complex wheel of existence. It was an honor to be taught the secrets and the peculiar way in which Life, Death and Rebirth worked and flowed through all things. In Ishbal, the ancient texts that were forgotten and burnt away in the war, taught of a unique gift of the Goddess, something to set humans above the rest of the creatures that Ishbala had breathed life into: The Power to Be. Ishbala gave humans the power to bend the world into corners, to turn the ocean in to barren wasteland and the desert into a flourishing meadow. But not in Amestris. In Amestris secrecy remained, but none of the significance of it was valued.

In medieval times, not long before Alchemy became a science and mysticism was discarded, some theorized that each transmutation took a toll on the soul of the Alchemist, a sliver at the time, which flowed into the lines and the arrays to set the transformation in motion. Some said it was such a minuscule part of the All that made up the Soul that it went unnoticed, but that since the object that had been transmuted – living or non-living – had been made with it, it became a part of the Alchemist himself. Enthusiasts of this theory became the first Chimera-making Masters, who thought immortality could be achieved by multiplying the 'whole' an infinite number of times, but that's not quite how it worked.

The All, the Soul that individualizes each human and which anchors a mind into a body, it's unlimited, but not infinite. So transmutation after transmutation, sliver by sliver, the soul wanes which each flash of light, with each line traced, until little is left behind.

Edward Elric had transmuted many things; he opened The Gate and offered himself as sacrifice and payment. Edward Elric had created a Homunculus, which is something far more taxing than any chimera and he had bound his brother's soul at the cost of his own blood. For many years, he carried the mutilation of his body as a physical memento of past mistakes, but the tiny fractures in his soul, those countless slivers that were taken away with each clap, those he didn't see until it was too late.

Until he opened The Gate while fresh blood spilled from the Serpent's mouth, showering everything in golden and red, until The Gate swallowed Envy whole for the second time… only then did Ed feel the gaping hole inside. Until Envy was taken with a wail, dragging a part of Ed's soul with him, all those slivers had remained separated; once the glow muted and Ed found himself standing back in his own world, the _missing_ inside condensed and gathered _into_ Envy, leaving Ed vulnerable to his own emotions.

Alchemist and Alchemy, Artist and Masterpiece, Creation and Creator…

Sinner and Sin.

Ed and Envy.

Of all the things he had transmuted, all the slivers he had given up and which he hadn't realized until too late… only Envy ever came back to him, and his closeness, the shared Truth that stood between them, it soothed Edward in awkward _wrong_ ways. It was like having a bit of what had been lost given back to him, like a really old photograph that had been thrown away and which somehow managed to get back home, all the memories, all the echoes it brought back and how _perfect_ it could be. The arrogant tilt of his chin, the vitreous tone of his words, the acid accuracy of his remarks, the stunning green hair that bounced and pooled everywhere, the pale skin that seem iridescent and pure amidst the mess that was their lives, the eyes… the eyes that saw past every single thing Ed had ever said and done and lied and pretended and hidden…

Envy was familiar in an alien way that sung of farewells and good-byes, but he knew Ed, _the_ Ed. The one with feelings beyond self-sacrifice and love, the one that hated and obsessed and _wanted_. Envy knew the Ed that couldn't stand still, the one that methodically killed every minute he had to spare by doing _something_. Envy knew the Ed that was terrified of the ghost that haunted his past, the thousand little shards of something he didn't want to acknowledge. Envy knew how Ed took his tea, religiously, every day. Envy knew Ed still limped slightly, despite being perfectly healthy, because his body was too used to the weight of automail to _change_.

Envy _knew_.

He was dangerous, psychotic and _evil_. He was an abomination of nature, a _sin_, and anyone else would have let him die, would have put an _end_ to Dante's legacy and the horrors she had created. Envy was the first and the last, the eternal victim and the willing tormentor, or maybe it was the other way around and Ed was getting confused again. But Envy was _unique_, beautiful in all his sordid glory when he stripped Ed of everything that made him Ed and reduced him to the primitive side that only _felt_.

They fitted well, he guessed, two broken things that struggled to move on, together. Ed had no silly notions of his relationship with Envy. Envy hated him and his father and his brother and the world, and that would not change. But it was still there, the puzzle presented itself in the shape of memories and sensations that didn't add up to reality. Envy had whatever that was missing, and Ed wanted it – it, him, them – back, if only to remind himself he wasn't dead yet.

Envy knew and was evil and Ed should have killed him, because it was _stupid_ to put two cents of hope on him.

But Ed missed him, all the same.

* * *

_Dear Ed, _

_How are you brother? I was worried when we missed your letters, but I'm glad to know the snow has let up and we can mail each other again. Russell came by some months ago, he seemed anxious. I think he's starting a new project… did you two fight? He was overly callous when I asked him if he planned to ask you for help. I hope you manage to fix your differences, he's a good lad, all things considered, and he cares a lot about you, brother. _

_Well, would you look at that? Since when does the youngest sibling counsel the oldest about relationships? But we've never been normal, have we? So I guess I can take the liberty to point it out, and hope to god you won't flip at me. _

_Russell loves you, Ed, like Roy loves me and like I love Roy. You can see it in the way he talks about you, the way he carries your letters around, the way he rolls your name in his mouth for a second before saying it. He loves you, and I think you should do something about it. I think what they say about those in love is true, we honestly try to set everyone else up with someone… but you deserve to be happy, Ed. No one deserves happiness more than you do. And, if you allow me to say it, I think Russell can give it to you. He knows you, after all, doesn't he? And he might not be Alfons, but he loves you just the same. You don't have to pretend to be someone else with him. _

_I know you're mourning, brother, but I also think time has come for you to move on. Loss has always been a part of our lives, and I don't want you to think I don't understand your pain, I do… but I wouldn't want you to drown on it. Remember after mom died, how all I ever did was cry around, clinging to her clothes and her bed? But you always came around to pick me up and take me back to our room; you even let me sleep in your bed. You were there, Ed, when I needed you the most, you held me and soothed me and when I was scared out of my wits inside the armor, you talked to me and put on a brave face, promising everything would be okay. And it was okay. I don't know if it's because things were that way, or because you said it would be okay, but it was. _

_Won't you let me be there for you now? Like you've been there for me, always? _

_Won't you let me love you, Ed? Won't you let us love you? _

_Roy will take a month long vacation come summer, would you mind if we visited you? Just a week, Ed, please. I haven't seen your face in two years. I understand you need time to recover from the shock and everything that happened 'there', but I don't want to lose my brother. I'm selfish, you see, and those I love, I have to keep on close watch at all times, 'cause otherwise I feel they're gonna disappear. I want to hug you, to see the smile reach your eyes, to hear you laugh. _

_I want you to be my brother again, am I truly such an evil person for asking that? _

_I'll wait for your answer soon, so you better tell me what week you want us there, otherwise we'll just stomp into your house and see if that's what it takes to make you come out of hiding. _

_Loving you despite your erratic mood swings and loving being nosy about it, _

_ Alphonse. _

* * *

They came in May, at the time Spring was waxing but Summer was still far away. Ruath was uneventful as ever, quiet and monotonous and just as Ed _liked it_, because if things never changed outside he could pretend things hadn't changed inside. But they had. Because Envy had come. Because Envy had left. Because.

Ed was starting to understand how someone's life could alter the perception of _time_, because just as there was a B.C. and A.D. in the Other World to track back time and years, centuries, whatever… and just like that, there was a _before_ and an _after_ Envy had come and thoroughly fucked up his life. Fucked him up in ways creating Sloth or fighting Dante or crossing the Threshold could have never even come close to breaking him, and which Envy managed with a stupidly irritating ease over the course of a single Winter.

But now they were _there_, standing at the doorway. Irrationally, Ed felt they were _invading_, but he couldn't really explain _what_. His home, his little life, his web of lies, his _memories_.

Alphonse and Roy, standing _there_, smiling and not knowing all the hell they caused.

They were tainting his memories. Memories were _all_ Ed had now, and they were destroying them, calmly and charmingly, walking in and greeting him and pretending they didn't _know_.

How couldn't they know? How could they not _see_ how they were breaking him, _killing_ him?

"Ed!"

Alphonse hugged him and expected everything to be fine, but things _weren't_ fine, and how the fuck could he be so _blind_? Roy stood there, tentative and anxious, expecting him to throw a gasket and act like a bloody _brat_. _Shitty midget! Stupid brat! Immature shit!_ Ed closed his eyes tightly, held onto Alphonse and stopped the memories with as much strength as he could muster, because _fuck_, Envy wasn't there and _they_ were, and _why_ couldn't he be coherent?

Ed forced himself to smile and thought Envy had rubbed too much on him when Alphonse didn't notice how _fake_ it was. Then he gave Roy a mild glare, mild considering what the bastard _deserved_, but he made Al happy and if Al was happy, he was being happy _away_ from Ed and his memories and his un-happy-ness. Ed loved him and them both, in different, awkward ways, but he no longer felt compelled to love them while they were _near_. He could love the people described in the letters, he could love the snippets, and he could love the words and the phrases.

He just wasn't strong enough to love the real people anymore.

"It has been long, Edward." Mustang looked well. As well as it was to be expected, of course, considering he had been _fucking his brother for years now_, but Ed wasn't about to let something so callous and so entirely _unfair_ to cloud his judgment.

They had just gotten there, they were there to see him, they were _worried_ about him and they _loved_ him… but all he wanted was the agony to end and see them go away. He loved them and they loved him, but that didn't mean they weren't making him miserable beyond words.

_Love, love, love… shut it up about the fucking love already. All Love's good for is hurting people when they least expect it. _

Funny how Envy's words always took a deeper meaning when the stupid _asshole_ was nowhere near to cackle in triumph.

Ed knew the story, of course; Alphonse had explained it in a long letter that Ed had attempted to tear down far too many times for it to be healthy. Of course Roy hadn't taken advantage of him and of course he wasn't trying to _replace_ him – despite what Al suspected, his relationship with his superior had never been like _that_, simply because he had always thought he hated the bastard's guts, at least until he met Envy and realized what _hating_ meant – simply they were two lone souls who had survived from hell and back. And while Mustang had been a shameless flirt in his day, he was devoted entirely to Al, whom he adored. And while Al was younger than Ed – now even _younger_, after he recovered his body – but he was wiser with the double life he had lived and the silence that came from being _alone_. He was a beautiful young man who had much to give, and Roy was, much as Ed was loathe to admit it, quite willing to receive and give back in kind.

They were good for each other, they complimented well and they had something that was unique and special.

Ed felt like choking a laugh when he realized he felt hints of _jealousy_ tingling between his bones and his skin. Envy had _definitely_ rubbed too hard on him.

"So, how's life at Central?" The older Elric ventured to ask as he skillfully – _diplomatically_ – changed the subject under bewildered stares, pretending to be unaffected by their surprise. "How's everyone?"

Some times it was hard to remember the world _did_ continue to move on outside his door, that people were born and died and _changed_ all the time. Some times, when he was too tired to hold onto his silly version of status quo, Ed wondered what was going on beyond his self imposed prison. All the people he'd met, all those who thought he was _dead_, where were they? Were they still alive? Were they dead? Had they married and had children? Did their wives and husbands cheated on them? Were they in love? Did they hate others?

Ed didn't know and didn't _want_ to know, but he was curious. And he was alone and bored and crumbling, so he asked. While Al and Roy sat down on the well-worn couch he'd bought along with the small house, stringing their answers as the perfect, well adjusted _whole_ they were, Ed hated _them_ a little more.

He didn't wonder if he had gone insane, he knew matter of fact he _was_ insane, and simply offered tea to his guests as they told him of things that held no importance to him anymore. It was going to be a long Summer.

* * *

Autumn brought dry, golden leaves and strange colors that made Ed dread and long for the Winter chill. Autumn brought Russell's letters and strings of incoherent apologies and promises of repentance. Autumn brought a jerky fight between Al and Roy and a teary break-up that left him feeling _bland_. It also brought an even _more_ teary reconciliation that made him blink, once or twice, and think that maybe he should have taken a more active role in his brother's life, beyond a couple of letters reassuring him, emptily, how everything would be okay.

Autumn brought a stupid lack of Envy, sick and feverish, stealing the warmth out of the house, and Ed hated it.

It had been nearly a year, give or take a few days, since he didn't really bother with calendars and such, since Envy had landed back into their world, confused, hurting and _dying_. It had been nearly a year since Ed had felt something akin to _life_ coursing through his veins. It had been nearly a year since he had something remotely resembling a purpose to serve.

Ed was lonely.

It was a most curious sensation, that emptiness that continuously gnawed at his mind, a void of something _missing_. Tangible, but not solid enough to crush him, just enough to intimidate him with the hinted brunt of it. Nothing was enough anymore, not life, not warmth, not air, not the fucking _empty_ corners where Envy perched on to watch him from above, not the soiled bed sheets that mocked him with their cleanliness, not the messed up photo albums that he couldn't bring himself to reorganize again. _Nothing_. The echo was there, a muted _sensation_ of familiarity, of queer affection that really had no place there, because Ed didn't hate Envy anymore. He didn't hate him for the same reason he didn't love Alphonse anymore. Because he couldn't and it was hollow and _stupid_ to hope for anything else, when he was so _lonely_ and everything was grey, bleak and _pointless._ Everything seemed worthless, inane repetition only for the sake of _remaining_.

Long ago, when Ed was as bright as the sun and just as fierce, he believed in Change. He believed in it in all shapes and forms, the dogma of faith upon which he had built up his world, his dreams, _himself_. Be it through Alchemy or hope, everything could be changed: a corrupt government, a childhood mistake, a broken friendship, an unjust war, _the world_. If Ed worked hard enough, if he gave up everything he had and then some, then he believed he would make things right again. He believed that below the circles, the lines, the triangles and the ancient words, that there he could find the Universal Truth: _nothing is impossible_. And nothing was, not to him, because he was _Edward Elric_, the Fullmetal Alchemist, the only one brave enough – or _stupid_ enough – to challenge the sun and burst out into a supernova that blinded everyone with his brilliancy.

Except that when the light died out, when the star consumed itself up and nothing, not even dust, remained of it, hopes were replaced with doubt and Change with Stillness. He thought, long and hard, because that was all he could do anymore, thought and thought and thought and thought until everything lost meaning and became worthless. Russell continued to apologize about something he thought was _horrible_, and probably _was_, but Ed didn't dwell upon it anymore. It had hurt, it had been wrong and he had been _used_, but he had done it and who the hell cared, anyway? It was done, it hurt and it was over, but unlike the pain he had endured in his childhood, unlike the agony of being stripped off his body and his soul – sliver by sliver by sliver by sliver by sliver by sliver until half of it was _gone_ – that had no further consequence. It simply and plainly didn't matter. It served no higher purpose. It brought nothing, not even pain, not even _shame_.

Nothing mattered, because he was a disgraceful Alchemist with a fake name and an empty life and only half a soul, and _he_ didn't matter.

Sweeping the dried leaves off his backyard – _pointlesspointlesspointlesspointlesspoin tlesspointless_ – for no other reason that he hated sitting around doing nothing, Ed wondered if being soulless was similar to how he felt, and then promised himself to ask Envy about it if – _when_ – he saw the annoyingly smug bastard again.

* * *

"You're an idiot."

Not '_are you okay?'_ or _'hey there'_ or, hell, _'want a hand with that?'_ Ed blinked at the sky in bewilderment for a moment, feeling his back throb and a thousand little pains and aches resettle themselves. Then he groaned and shut his eyes tightly, feeling – and _hating_ – the rush of _aliveness_ come back to flood him.

"I'm talking to you, shithead."

A hand roughly pulling him upwards and Ed entertained the silly notion that as long as he didn't _look_, it didn't really matter. After he was shaken not too kindly, Ed opened his eyes.

Envy arched an eyebrow at him, purple eyes slitted and _queer_ from up close.

Ed should have been thinking about other things like, for instance, that he was being held off the ground and Envy didn't seem strained by it, which could only mean the homunculus had fully recovered; or maybe that he was in _pain_, because _fuck_, falling off the steps had _hurt_; or perhaps that it was strange to _feel_ everything so sharply, when it had been about forever since he last felt the tingle of sensation over the dullness that had numbed his senses. There were a lot of things to consider and ponder properly, more so evaluate the causes for the unlikely event. But goddamnit, all he could think was _he's back_.

And before he could fully reason out that Envy was most likely back to _kill_ him, Ed raised his arms to rest on the Sin's shoulders and leaned in for a kiss.

Envy was too stunned to react and Ed was too desperate to _think_, so neither noticed when it started to snow. They didn't care, either.

* * *

Excluding the little kiss incident, Envy tried to treat – _fuck_ – Ed just as he always did. Impersonally, desperately, erratically. When they reached the bedroom, by some miracle of the Powers that Be, the young blond was purring a strange sobbing noise that oddly enough resembled laughter as he held onto the homunculus for his dear life, twisting, pushing, pulling and _wanting_. The spark came back, mute compared to the blinding of the fire before, but certainly stronger than the listless _nothing_ of the past months.

Envy was mildly surprised to see the brat had decided to interact with him, rather than simply lie back and take it like some sort of punishment. It _was_ punishment, perhaps the only sure way Envy had ever found to get under Ed's skin and _break_ him, but at the same time it was an honor. Maybe the brat had never realized it, how special Envy had unknowingly made him when he let them fuck and wear his own smile. Maybe he'd shown the brat a pale face with silvery hair back when they were actively killing each other, but he'd shown him _Envy_, when he had thrown him back against the bed the first time.

Surprise morphed into dark curiosity, and the homunculus cynically allowed the blond to turn him around and let him do as he pleased. The strange complacent mood would have struck Ed as odd, had he not been too busy touching, feeling, _ensuring_ the whole thing was real. Between the sudden onslaught of sensation and the unpredictable nature of the Sin, Ed didn't want to risk ruining things by stopping. Or thinking. Or _breathing_.

And then, as swiftly as it had started, it came to a stop, with Ed straddling Envy, looking down at him with wild eyes, face flushed and shuddering breaths. Envy stared up at him, half curious half sneering, dark eyes swirling with the promise of _something_, but Ed didn't really care what. He was back, and _he_ was back, and it made him feel so fucking _alive_.

"You're fucking _sad_, Ed," Envy said with a wide smirk and Ed _moaned_, because that, _that_ was the voice, the exact snide tone that made his whole body tense and tremble and wonder what the hell was wrong with him. "Whore."

Ed kissed him again, clumsy and impulsive as everything he did, and Envy allowed him to. He clenched his fists on hair and flesh, biting and licking, tasting the brat to the last corner of his mouth, because this moment was his and _his_ alone. He'd been away for too long, testing the limits of his own freedom, but it didn't matter how far away he went, back in a forgotten corner of Ruath, the memory of the blond stood up like a sore thumb that wouldn't let him _be_.

Freedom was a strange concept for Envy, it was not something he could easily associate with himself. He was a servant, he was a tool, he was a _mean_ to an end. But after the Gate deemed it fine to spit him out on a dirty street, dying and falling apart, after he was regained his strength, after he _fucked Edward Elric_, Envy had been at loss as to what to do with himself. He didn't want another Master, he didn't have another _purpose_. There was no Hohenheim – he'd _killed_ the bastard, for once in his wrenched existance he'd gotten what he _wanted_ – and there was no Dante. There was only Ed.

So after roaming around the country, wasting time as he wandered aimlessly, Envy had decided to do _something_ about Ed. Anything.

"Are you going to bore me to tears with how much you missed me, or are you going to fuck me?"

Envy still thought sex was moronic and stupid and _painful_, but he couldn't deny the intensity that came with the barest brush of fingers against his skin. Freedom had the ungodly consequence of drying up his hatred, draining him of the thing he needed the most. Envy wasn't Envy if he didn't _hate_, but Hohenheim had gotten his due – Envy had gotten what he _wanted_ – and there was no one else to hate the same way. Envy could hate humans and animals and the weather, but he couldn't really bring himself to hate _them_ the same way he had hated _him_. Hatred for Hohenheim had kept him _whole_ for four centuries, a never ending source of warmth and something akin to comfort whenever he felt like giving up. He had had a purpose, one greater than Dante's silly schemes or the stupid pursuit of humanity his siblings indulged in. No, Envy had his hatred and his vow of _revenge_.

Once that was missing, Envy was just as lost as aimless as Ed had been, because he needed _something_.

Perhaps once he allowed the brat to completely fuck him up, then maybe he could take his father's place and be _useful_.

_Whore._

Envy had gotten what he wanted once, before. When Ed came inside him, choking on his own cries, he wondered if it would happen again. Then, while Ed was busy crying himself hoarse at his shoulder – really, Envy should have been used to the routine, considering Ed did it _every time_ they fucked, but it was still as refreshing as the first time; the guilt, the want, the _shame_ – he smiled, and it was not a pretty smile.

* * *

Envy woke up at dawn, staring at the boring ceiling with its little plaster bumps and wondered what he was doing. Ed was snuggled up against his side, a ball of feverish warmth that made him uncomfortable. Pulling back with a snort, the sin watched the alchemist with a sneer. Ed had kissed him the day before. Ed had _fucked_ him the day before. Envy had pulled him in, all the way inside, because it was what he needed, what he _wanted_. Envy was _free_, he could do as he wanted and no one could stop him.

There was no Hohenheim, no Dante; only Ed.

Ed with his tentative smiles, his strange stories about his heartbreak, his pleading little gasps and his unending source of tears. Curious thing, Envy thought as he ran a hand over the golden hair, that in someone so stoic, so _resistant_, sex could bring out all the fears, all the pain. Ed hadn't cried when Envy killed him, all those years – _lifetimes_ – ago, but he cried when he came, because Envy touched him or let him touch him. Endearing, in a way; annoying, in another.

The Sin studied his bed partner attentively, drinking in all the details that made up such a tantalizing image. He was attracted to Ed, he'd come to that conclusion while he tried to figure out what being free meant, but he only liked him because the brat was _pretty_. Envy knew it all about beauty, after all. Yes… the pale hair spilled over the pillows, shimmering against the first light of dawn; the pale skin, marred by the occasional bruise or crust of dried blood from where Envy had lost control of his limbs the night before.

Such a peaceful expression on his face, Envy almost felt sorry when he killed him – almost, but not quite.


	8. Grief

**Story Title:** Pieces of a Dream.  
**Chapter Title:** Grief.  
**Pairing(s):** Edward Elric/Envy; nods to Roy Mustang/Alphonse Elric and Edward Elric/Alfons Heiderich; one-sided/platonic Russell Tringham/Edward Elric  
**Beta:** No one, yet.  
**Rating:** PG-13, this chapter. NC-17, overall.  
**Genre:** Angst, Romance.  
**Warnings:** Post anime, more or less consistent with movie canon, violence, gore.  
**Feedback:** Very welcome, please!  
**Word Count:** +/- 1 616.  
**Final Word Count+/- 20 082.**  
**Summary:** This is not what they need. This is not what they want. This is what they have, to build up something from ashes of their dreams.  
**Author's Notes:** Final chapter, and "Pieces of a Dream" is done. Much thanks for those who read and left a comment even if it was to say you didn't like it, that's okay, I'm always open to others' opinion of my work. This is the 'roll call' chapter, if you managed to stay with me up to this point, I would appreciate it if you dropped a comment, even if it's to complain. You don't have to, of course, but I'm curious as to see how many of you actually read through this madness. ;)

* * *

**Pieces of a Dream. **

Grief.

_"Grief is the silence along your smile,  
Frozen in time so you won't forget;  
Grief is this last one promise,  
Premise to the unknown, unchartered nowhere.  
Grief is this mourning that mourns for itself,  
Secluded in the knowledge that I will remain.  
Grief is the tears I don't shed,  
The loss, the pain I won't feel.  
Grief is dying and not knowing;  
I'm still alive."_

--"Grief", Rieka De-Volka. (2006).

No matter how many times it happened, Envy was never going to get used to the feeling of being transmuted. The rush of energy coursing through his limbs, the burning sensation of being torn apart to nothing and being gathered again, in strange, new ways. It hurt so much it was obscenely erotic, and yet he remained wary of it, knowing in a corner of his mind that nothing good would ever come from it. At least not for him. Never for him. It was just how it was meant to be, though, the pain, the sting, the _shame_ of being so damn _open_. Vulnerable.

In between a heartbeat and the next, Edward Elric saw all there was to be seen within Envy – within, around inside, outside, around, behind – burning the knowledge all over his skin, letting it go through and curl deep into his bones. Every nerve in his body sang to Envy's name, the light washing around him in a desperate attempt to _breathe_.

And when it was over, the light and the voices and the unexpected _sense_ of _him_, the dull little room seemed normal with its dull little bed and table and chair, with a dull little window that faced the dull little forest. As if nothing had ever happened within the four white – _beige_, Envy remembered he spent a few days figuring out that color was actually beige – walls, no screams and no betrayals and no unexpected visits, because it was just a dull little place where nothing ever happened.

Envy sat in the bed, the white linens spilled around him and the last remains of warmth from where Ed's body used to be. He ran his hands over sheets, over the strange patterns that formed in it, sucking the heat off them and into his numb fingers and then moved his attention to his own body. His skin was cold to the touch – or maybe he'd just gotten used to Ed's warmth – so he rubbed and caressed uselessly, trying to chase the non-existent chill away.

Hours later, when he set the cabin on fire and watched it being consumed by the flames, he had the eerie itch of déjà vu. People nearby came to try and stop the fire, all of Ed's faithful, faceless neighbors that he liked simply because they stayed away, but Envy knew well how to start a fire and before their helpless attempts, the house was reduced to smoldering remains and a handful of ashes.

Unseen by anyone, Envy fled the feelings within him, the strange intuition of having lost something irreplaceable, and wondered what he would do with his freedom.

* * *

He didn't stray far away from Ruath, though, curious by the heavy atmosphere that gathered around the small town as it was suddenly flooded with outsiders. Envy hid in the snowed treetops, violet eyes attentive as he watched various blue uniforms step into the remains of the house, a handful of civilians and generally people he vaguely recognized. It was faintly disturbing to _know_ them, though, because Envy never really cared about humans enough to keep tabs about them, so there was absolutely no reason for him to realize the black dress Winry was wearing had been bought during a trip to the South, as an apology for bursted automail. He really shouldn't even know _who_ she was.

But he still knew them and found them all familiar, and the chill inside, the cold that was threatening to eat him whole, it trembled and grew with each pathetic display of grief he saw. Envy remained hidden, observing, eyes sharp and sneer in place, but he couldn't but wonder what was wrong with him.

When he had left Ed the first time, strong and aware of his own freedom, he had wanted to test the limits of his body, to reacquaint himself with his own strength. But there was the persistant tug within him to come back to the tiny town, to the endless stories about a man he never knew and the eerie wanting in the golden eyes. It was the oddest thing, to tell the truth, that Ed wanted _him_, Envy. No one was supposed to want him. No one had ever wanted him before. Envy had felt queasy when he thought about it, so he hadn't, and for a whole year, he'd wrecked havoc around the country, killing and deceiving until it all grew old and boring and the continuous tug became insistent, demanding. Curious, he came back, because he felt he had a loose end to tie up in Ruath.

Yet he had finished off his business, he had made sure Ed was gone forever – at least he thought so, but since the brat had done something so _foolish_, he couldn't be sure; the blond could be prowling the streets of Munich again, perhaps – and the tug remained. It became strong, hard and unrelenting. A yearning. Envy had never truly yearned for something, and now that he did, he didn't know _what_ he yearned for.

This cold inside him, the sensation of something _missing_, a strange hunger that no amount of red stones could satiate, he wanted it gone.

Envy had never mourned for something, he had never lost something that was precious enough to feel for it's loss, but he instinctively knew he wasn't supposed to _feel_ like he did and he rebelled against the feeling, angry. Anger was the best thing he could deal with, because it was simple and straight-forward. He killed whatever made him angry – sometimes things that didn't, as well – and then he felt better. But he couldn't kill what made him angry, because it was already dead, and this realization only brought more of the bitter cold that nestled in his bones and made him weak.

Envy mourned, even if he didn't want to, even if he didn't know how to, and he hated it.

* * *

"You caused this."

Envy stood atop a tombstone, careless as he faced the accusations from the incensed Russell. The black surface was porous under his feet, volcanic rock that had been brought specifically to make honors to the Greatest Alchemist of the Era. Envy thought it was pretentious and without knowing how he knew Ed would have hated it, but Ed was gone already and Envy had no reason to bother with what he would have liked or not. The alchemist glared and shook with barely restrained rage, blind hatred that was so familiar Envy felt himself grow weightless. Blue eyes bore down on him, threatening, promising retribution.

Envy took a moment to try and understand why he felt like he deserved it, then shrugged off both the threat and the sensation it caused and grinned.

Grinning always made things better.

"Yeah," Envy told the sky and the sobbing human, watching the snowflakes that passed him by and wondering when the gaping _emptiness_ would end. "Yeah, I did."

The sky was dark, heavy with ice and when the snow fell, so did Russell, breaking down in a pitiful display under the silent stare of a homunculus that did not know what grief was; too hurt to attack, too tired to keep fighting.

Russell cried, and Envy kept on watching, silent; perhaps now he had something new to keep him going for a decade or two, a new toy to break before it became boring.

Maybe.

* * *

Homunculi do not dream. Dreaming requires a soul and a will to be filled with unfulfilled desires. To dream would mean to embrace the last tendrils of humanity that still inhabit their soulless, broken bodies. Only humans can dream, and homunculi are not human; they are perpetually rotting flesh and haunting echoes of self-sustaining nothingness, the quintessence of bitter regrets and a futile attempt to defy Death.

Envy is a homunculus, the dust of Time that gathers at the corners of the Gate. He's immortal and he might not know many things – things like those he learned during the time he allowed Ed to be near – but the only certain thing in his existance is that no remains of humanity exist within him.

Envy doesn't dream anymore.

He thinks about it, though, sometimes, when he changes his face and starts a new game in a new place, always with the golden eyes - empty and lifeless - staring behind him, within his mind, and the ballsy brat stepping on his toes. Russell is a persistant creature that will not stop until either or both are dead. A few decades ago, Envy would have killed Russell a couple of times already, but Envy is no longer the Envy that instigated wars under Dante's tutelage. Envy is bored and this silly game of cat and mouse is the only thing that keeps the tediousness of the world at bay. Envy turns and Russell follows, always, and they keep each other alive with Ed standing impassively in between them like a bloodied thorn that casts its shadow on everything that he never knew.

No, Envy does not dream anymore, but he remembers, the pieces of those dreams, the shards of might-have-been's that haunt him late at night, the sparks of desire and pleasure and _fulfillness_…

He remembers, and that's enough.

For now.

* * *

**The End. **

* * *

**Review? Please?**


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